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Monday, April 30, 2018

The following account was written concerning Saint Donatos (Apr. 30), a late fourth century bishop from Albania, by the fifth century historian Sozomen (Eccl. Hist., Bk. 7, Ch. 26):

"There were at this period many other bishops in various parts of the empire highly celebrated for their sanctity and high qualifications, of whom Donatos, Bishop of Euroea in Epirus, deserves to be particularly mentioned. The inhabitants of the country relate many extraordinary miracles which he performed, of which the most celebrated seems to have been the destruction of a dragon of enormous size. It had stationed itself on the high road, at a place called Chamaegephyrae and devoured sheep, goats, oxen, horses, and men. Donatos came upon this beast, attacked it unarmed, without sword, lance, or javelin; it raised its head, and was about to dash upon him, when Donatos made the sign of the cross with his finger in the air, and spat upon the dragon. The saliva entered its mouth, and it immediately expired. As it lay extended on the earth it did not appear inferior in size to the noted serpents of India. I have been informed that the people of the country yoked eight pair of oxen to transport the body to a neighboring field, where they burnt it, that it might not during the process of decomposition corrupt the air and generate disease... The inhabitants of Isoria, a village in the territory of Euroea, bear testimony to the truth of this narration."

Monday, April 23, 2018

Alan John Bayard Wace (13 July 1879 in Cambridge, England – 9 November 1957, in Athens, Greece) was an English archaeologist. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was director of the British School at Athens (1914-1923), Deputy Keeper in the Department of Textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum (1924-1934), the second Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at University of Cambridge (1934-1944) and professor at the Farouk I University in Egypt (1943-1952). Among Wace's field projects were those at Sparta, Mycenae, Troy, Thessaly, Corinth, and Alexandria. Along with Carl Blegen, Wace carried out important work on the decipherment of Linear B tablets.